Geeze, I like this color combo on '55 Carribeans...

[8E45E]

the '55 Olds sedans... the weird lightning bolt effect.

Then you would have liked the Canadian-market 1956 Meteor: http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.c...7920&styleid=1

http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.c...oria&styleid=1

Craig

[BobPalma]

One more interesting (to me) detail. Only in '55 and only on the two Clipper hardtop models did they delete the rear skirts. Car styling seemed less chunky. Same trick they had used on the '54 Caribbean. The '53 Caribbean had full rear wheel cutouts, distinctive but added to the already costly conversion work at Mitchell-Bentley. The '53 Carib was a restrained, elegant design, no two-tone whatsoever. How quickly tastes changed! Gil

True on the 1955 Custom Constellation hardtop, Gil, but not the lower-priced 1955 Super Panama hardtop. It got skirts. BP

[8E45E]

http://cdn.barrett-jackson.com/stagi...ar_3-4_Web.jpg

I wonder I this is the same car: http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.c...kard-Caribbean

Craig

[riversidevw]

True on the 1955 Custom Constellation hardtop, Gil, but not the lower-priced 1955 Super Panama hardtop. It got skirts. BP

Right you are, Bob. Thanks much for the fact check. I actually knew that once, but time is chipping away. Between the two of us, we will get this right (mostly).

Clipper Super Panama hardtop:

https://dxsdcl7y7vn9x.cloudfront.net...B077F97E_1.jpg

[riversidevw]

I wonder I this is the same car: http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.c...kard-Caribbean

Craig

Craig, I believe one of the colors on the car in your link is Polaris Blue. The one I posted earlier has Gulf Green metallic as the accent color. There weren't a lot of these cars of either '53 or '54 model year produced, but suspect a high survival rate.

I tend to recognize the Polaris Blue because I long ago restored and owned one for some time. Long enough ago that my photos are mostly slides. Below is a snapshot of a book that included the car. Obscure autograph lower corner of page is Dick Teague's. He styled the '55-'56 line, the Caribbeans, the Packard Predictor. Got to know Dick during years from his retirement at AMC until his death here in SoCal. Remarkably nice guy.

EDIT: He was still going to work in his office at Packard as the crews came through with orders (assume from Curtiss-Wright) to seize and eradicate most everything. Dick saved reams of original styling archives and artwork, often smuggling bundles of papers in the big Rochester air cleaner housing under the hood of his company '56 Four Hundred hardtop. Security had begun searching the cars leaving the offices, even that of the chief of styling. They never looked inside the air cleaner. I have one of those original styling artwork pieces from 1930 era.

[riversidevw]

Then you would have liked the Canadian-market 1956 Meteor: http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.c...7920&styleid=1

http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.c...oria&styleid=1

Craig

Or how about the twilight years of once-proud Hudson and Nash ("Hash")?

http://images.hemmings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/19550731-770-0-700x467.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1Jd6N7qX1X...RI/s1600/1.jpg

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/73...d6c2dbd477.jpg


I've been enjoying this thread too much.

Gil

[riversidevw]

I'm dragging myself back on topic. Back in '91, Packards International dedicated a quarterly issue to Richard Teague. Front and back covers were excellent images of a '56 Four Hundred hardtop, Dover White over Scottish Heather. It's indeed one of the most striking of the 1956-only colors. And it should be immune to the snarky Mary Kay comments.

Always thought Teague did a very decent job on styling these big cars. They were a facelift of the very traditional '51-'54 generation. Dick didn't have the luxury of starting with a clean slate, as the folks at Lincoln did with their sleek '56. And the designer of the '51 Packard (John Reinhart) had been disappointed in that one, thanks to meddling by management. Reinhart better known for the Continental Mark II.

Gil

[BobPalma]

I'm dragging myself back on topic. Back in '91, Packards International dedicated a quarterly issue to Richard Teague. Front and back covers were excellent images of a '56 Four Hundred hardtop, Dover White over Scottish Heather. It's indeed one of the most striking of the 1956-only colors. And it should be immune to the snarky Mary Kay comments.

Always thought Teague did a very decent job on styling these big cars. They were a quick facelift of the very traditional '51-'54 generation. Dick didn't have the luxury of starting with a clean slate, as the folks at Lincoln did with their sleek '56. Gil

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. With the wrap-around windshield and thoroughly-freshened ends (well, at least for the Senior Series in 1955), a goodly percentage of people probably thought it was a whole new car. Equally impressive is how Ford did essentially the same thing with the 1952-1954 body. BP

[Dwain G.]

True on the 1955 Custom Constellation hardtop, Gil, but not the lower-priced 1955 Super Panama hardtop. It got skirts. BP

My '55 was all black. A repaint that was originally red and white or red and black, don't remember which now. Black and white interior, skirts long gone. Traded a beat up but good running '49 2R5 for a set of Chrysler chrome wires and installed them. They weren't especially smooth running, but sure looked good!

[8E45E]

I'm dragging myself back on topic. Back in '91, Packards International dedicated a quarterly issue to Richard Teague. Front and back covers were excellent images of a '56 Four Hundred hardtop, Dover White over Scottish Heather. It's indeed one of the most striking of the 1956-only colors. And it should be immune to the snarky Mary Kay comments.

Yes it should be free from that as it wasn't even a Packard color.

As I recall seeing in some paint chip books, her fleet color for years was a 1956 Cadillac color, 'Mountain Laurel'. Cadillac had (and maybe still does) in place a policy where one could special order a previous year's color on a brand new car.

Craig

[riversidevw]

Just to illustrate the shared bones of the V8 and earlier Packards... sometime in the 80s, we visited the NorCal regional Packard concours near Davis, CA. I was stunned by a beautiful as-new yellow/white '55 Clipper Custom Constellation convertible. A WHAT?

A seriously skilled restorer had taken a 1954 Packard Convertible with the same 122" wheelbase. (Not to be confused with the Caribbean.) He had adapted the wraparound windshield and hung every '55 Clipper body panel, trim piece, grille, etc. on the car. The dash, steering wheel and interior trim were perfectly restored '55 Clipper Custom, to the last detail. Rest was all '54 convertible, including the straight-eight 359. I've forgotten if he went 6 or 12 volt (positive ground was used both years.) Fit and finish were just impeccable, even the work under the hood was perfect and seamless. Doubtless the process wasn't quite as simple as it sounds. My wife dragged me away for fear it might be "available." I still have fond memories of this oddball.

Gil

[BobPalma]

Just to illustrate the shared bones of the V8 and earlier Packards... sometime in the 80s, we visited the NorCal regional Packard concours near Davis, CA. I was stunned by a beautiful as-new yellow/white '55 Clipper Custom Constellation convertible. A WHAT?

A seriously skilled restorer had taken a 1954 Packard Convertible with the same 122" wheelbase. (Not to be confused with the Caribbean.) He had adapted the wraparound windshield and hung every '55 Clipper body panel, trim piece, grille, etc. on the car. The dash, steering wheel and interior trim were perfectly restored '55 Clipper Custom, to the last detail. Rest was all '54 convertible, including the straight-eight 359. I've forgotten if he went 6 or 12 volt (positive ground was used both years.) Fit and finish were just impeccable, even the work under the hood was perfect and seamless. Doubtless the process wasn't quite as simple as it sounds. My wife dragged me away for fear it might be "available." I still have fond memories of this oddball. Gil

That sounds really pretty; did you happen to take any photos of it? I wish Packard had had the time and wherewithal to make Clipper convertibles in 1955 and 1956.

Similar to that was a drop-dead gorgeous 1972 Monte Carlo convertible that appeared at an Indianapolis Raceway Park show here several years ago. Beautifully done, starting with a 1970-1972 Malibu convertible. Another car GM should have made. BP

[riversidevw]

That sounds really pretty; did you happen to take any photos of it? I wish Packard had had the time and wherewithal to make Clipper convertibles in 1955 and 1956.

Photos? I wish! Left the old Minolta at home for some reason. Decades before the iPhone arrived.

I sure was smitten by that car. In that price range of the premium Clippers, I recall a fair number of Buick Century and Mercury Montclair convertibles on the road in '55, even in the Midwest. But as you say, not enough time or wherewithal.

[riversidevw]

Way back in #16, I mostly buried a reference to an all-black '56 Patrician with a family connection. Those with any memories of national news in the cold January of 1958 might recall the panic that gripped the city of Lincoln, Nebraska. Photos of National Guardsmen joining machine-gun toting local and state police in the block-by-block search for a stolen Packard and the teenage couple on a horrific murder spree. Here's how it ended:

http://www.wyohistory.org/encycloped...il-fugate-1958

At the time I was told that Starkweather had worked as a city trash collection worker in the relatively posh neighborhood where the Wards lived and died.

The story inspired several forgettable films, including "Badlands."

Gil

[riversidevw]

"The dark uses..."

In the decades before hopped-up Ford and Mercury flat-head V8s, or the "Hot Rod Lincoln," Packards were favored getaway cars among the more affluent members of the criminal class. The company was even a little smug about it. In September 1913, the house magazine The Packard wrote, "Our friends intimate that the lightning like getaway has recommended the Packard to the dark uses of the powers that prey." When the millionaire murderer of architect Stanford White escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane that year, it was a chauffeur-driven Packard Six touring that left pursuing armed agents helplessly behind as the huge touring car raced to the Canadian border. "When dependability is vital, when high speed is necessary, when a fast getaway is absolutely imperative, Ask the Man Who Owns One."

OK, a lot smug about it.

The all-original Patrician I photographed in '91 led a far more tranquil life, sold by L. R. Brown and owned many years by a Japanese-American mechanic from that local Studebaker-Packard dealership. Car had just been serviced and detailed while awaiting shipment to a new home in Canada.